


dream world

by Elsajeni



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: (not very helpfully prophetic), Crowley's Century-Long Nap (Good Omens), Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, Pre-Scene: Church in London 1941 (Good Omens), Prophetic Dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:02:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28228848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsajeni/pseuds/Elsajeni
Summary: What has he missed in world events? What's going on out there— whatyearis it, even?The easy way to find out would be to go and see Aziraphale. Crowley's lip twists at the thought— he's not turning up at the bookshop looking for help, not after the last time he asked the angel for a favor.And anyway, if there really is something behind these dreams— something personal— he doesn't fancy bringing it to Aziraphale's doorstep.Crowley’s century-long nap was rich with dreams— dreams of Aziraphale, and a domestic life together, and something like bliss. Eventually, though, things in the dream start to go a bit sideways. Hints of war, of subterfuge and chaos. If he can't figure out why, either he or Aziraphale may be in real trouble...
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46
Collections: All Gifts Left In A Server For More Than A Fortnight





	dream world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SugarMagic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarMagic/gifts).



> Happy holidays, SugarMagic! I loved your prompt so much -- I'm sorry this is a little late, but I hope it does your ideas justice!

"Crowley, dear?"

It's a soft, cautious voice— tentative, Crowley thinks vaguely as he flounders toward wakefulness. As if Aziraphale isn't sure it's wise to wake him, or is afraid he'll be angry.

_Still_ angry, he supposes. And maybe he should be— what a bloody disaster, the both of them lashing out at each other, Aziraphale storming off—

—Aziraphale _here_. In his townhouse. While he's sleeping. Crowley bolts upright and blurts, "Angel?"

"Oh!" Beside the bed, Aziraphale takes a hasty step back, one hand over his heart. "I'm so sorry, my dear, I didn't mean to startle you— oh, I feel terribly foolish, I should have just let you sleep—"

"What's wrong?" But even as he says it, Crowley's asking the same question of himself. This isn't his bedroom at the townhouse— too open, too many pillows in the bed, too much sunlight pouring in from somewhere. And he's never owned a rocking chair, or a pale blue bedspread, or that horrible braided rug Aziraphale is standing on...

Crowley blinks, and the dream dissipates. He's in his own bedroom again— suitably grim and gothic in case someone from Below should ever drop in, and darkly-curtained enough that he could sleep in here for months, if he chose to, without ever being disturbed by the light. But he's still sitting up in bed, looking blearily at the wardrobe in the corner.

No— at the spot in front of it. The spot where, in the dream, Aziraphale had stood.

He drops back into the bed with a groan.

Bloody intolerable. Bad enough to have been turned down flat and sent packing in the waking world; does the blasted angel have to persecute him in his dreams, too?

Eventually Crowley gets out of bed, shuffles out to the sitting room. No lamps, no dressing gown— why bother? He's alone here, in the privacy of the darkness, and that's how he wants it.

He finds his globe cabinet unerringly in the dark, pours himself a glass of something, slugs it back— that one, just to chase off the lingering thought of the dream. The second glass he makes a proper nightcap of, lounging against the wall, thinking of all the more interesting dreams he could have had.

After the third he carries the bottle back to bed with him. By the time he's finished with it, he's sure, he won't be troubled by any more dreams.

* * *

He manages a good long while of dreamless sleep— a year or two, if he had to guess. And then a mostly-pleasant blur of dreams about nothing in particular, human sort of dreams: he's wandering down a market street in a town he vaguely remembers from the 12th century, looking for a stall selling peaches. He's trying to teach a gang of human children to pick pockets, but they keep wandering off, and he loses count of them and never gets through the lesson. He's in Hell for a performance review and he's not wearing any trousers.

That one jars him awake for a few moments. Long enough to look around and be _absolutely sure_ that he's in his own bedroom, and that no one is lurking in the corner, waiting to thrust a stack of reports at him and ask pointed questions about why they aren't filled out properly.

When he drifts off again, it's with the vague thought _don't I deserve a nice dream? Why can't it all be market squares and peaches?_

"Mm," someone says drowsily, right into his ear. The bed shifts and creaks, and suddenly there's a warm, solid presence at his back. "Good morning. Have we overslept?"

"Whuh," Crowley says— which, in his defense, is about as coherent as he would be if suddenly awakened in real life.

"Didn't you want to go to the market?" It's Aziraphale's voice, of course. And Aziraphale's arm, unmistakably, slung around his waist, and Aziraphale's nose nuzzling into the back of his neck. "We'd better get up, everyone will be out of fresh peaches if we wait any longer. Oh, and don't let me forget, I need eggs— I dropped my shopping yesterday and smashed the whole dozen."

Another dream, obviously. And another odd one; he's well familiar with dreams about going to bed with Aziraphale, he's been having that one for nigh on six thousand years, but _waking up_ in bed with Aziraphale is an interesting new variation.

Well. He did ask for market squares and peaches.

"All right," Crowley says aloud, and lets himself sink fully into the dream. "But never mind the peaches. Let's stay in bed a little longer..."

* * *

The dreams spiral on pleasantly from there. Sometimes he does dream of taking Aziraphale to bed; most of the time, though, they're just... together. At home together, planning their day over breakfast, or some similar quiet moment. Or out somewhere, a restaurant or the theater, not so different from reality except— except that they're unequivocally _together_ , arm in arm or hand in hand, unafraid to be seen.

Gradually, though, things begin to get a bit... weird.

"Crowley!"

"What's the matter?" Crowley calls back. Sort of a stupid question, he realizes— there's water dripping from _everywhere_ , and their little sitting room is a maze of pots and pans and buckets, each one filling up steadily.

"It's this dratted rain," Aziraphale answers him anyway, distracted. "It just won't _stop_ — I suppose the garden will benefit, but— hand me that bucket, will you, dear?"

Crowley does as he's told and then gets out of the way, watching as Aziraphale fusses with the array of receptacles in front of him, rearranging them to catch a new drip. Half of it is just bowls and cups from their china cabinet, painted with a strange repeating pattern of soaring eagles.

"We should move some things out of here," he suggests, looking around. The room looks half his and half Aziraphale's, and all of Aziraphale's things look particularly endangered by the water— a plush overstuffed armchair, woolly blankets draped over the couch, most of all the books stacked on every surface.

A new stream of water begins to drip as he's standing there, and Crowley snatches a book out from under it. It's a boring one, the life of some saint, but it's _Aziraphale's_ and so it's worth saving.

There's a half-full saucepan nearby; he drags it over, trying to position it so it catches both the new drip and the one it was handling before, and glances around for a cabinet or a suitcase or _somewhere_ to put the blasted book. "Aziraphale— we've got to find somewhere safe for all your books."

"Oh, I'm not worried about it, darling," Aziraphale says, beaming at him— he's half soaked through himself, as if he's been standing out in the garden in this pouring rain. There might as well not be a roof over them at all. "You'll keep them safe."

* * *

There's always a garden. That's an interesting detail— he dreams of different houses, different places and times, but there's always a lush garden, more reminiscent of Eden than even the wildest cottage garden.

_Probably something psychological in that_ , Crowley thinks, looking out at a riot of blossoms. It's raining again, too. Gardens, and rainstorms, and Aziraphale— it all comes back to that first day, doesn't it?

Aziraphale is walking in the garden, not seeming to mind the drizzle. There's not a path, exactly— or maybe there's a secret way through that only the two of them know; from Crowley's vantage point, the plants just seem to part for Aziraphale as he roams.

Crowley watches, aware that there's a foolish little smile on his face but not really minding. Outside, Aziraphale meanders from one tree or shrub or stand of flowers to another. Here he pauses to admire a gleaming apple ( _apple trees_ , Crowley thinks with mild chagrin, _there's always a blessed apple tree, too_ ); there, to bend down and smell the last of the lilac. A pair of hawks circle above him, their wide-winged silhouettes against the sky setting off a chorus of alarm calls from the branches of the apple tree.

He comes to a particularly lush stand of double roses. They're massive, blossoms twice the size of his fist— and their thorns are massive, too. Crowley can see them even from the window.

Aziraphale doesn't seem to mind, or perhaps even notice. He strokes the petals of one heavy blossom, and then reaches for its stem. There's a thorn there that must be an inch long, viciously sharp, and the soft pad of Aziraphale's thumb is about to come down on it—

The scene blurs, as dreams do, and Crowley is in the garden beside him. "Careful," he blurts, and flings a hand out to catch Aziraphale by the wrist.

"Oh!" Aziraphale draws his hand back. "Dear me, I didn't see that at all."

Crowley glances down, and his whole body tenses— there's the pinprick mark of the thorn on Aziraphale's thumb, and as he watches, a drop of blood welling up—

* * *

Crowley bolts upright, back in his own bed.

It was a dream. Obviously. And it wasn't even, if he forces himself to think about it clearly, a particularly _bad_ dream. A prick on the thumb from a rosebush— hardly the stuff of nightmares.

Still, he's breathing hard, and when he reaches for the half-empty glass abandoned on his nightstand, his hand is shaking.

It's strange, how dreams can have that effect. Nothing really happening, no lurid monsters looming out of the darkness at you or anything, but the suffocating dread builds and builds and you wake with the certainty that something horrible is about to happen—

_—something horrible is about to happen._

"Stupid," Crowley mutters as he scrambles out of bed. "Unbelievably blessed stupid— nightmares are for _humans_ , you useless pillock, what do you think you are—"

He does know this feeling. This is the feeling of being _sought_. Strange omens, a creeping dread— how long has he been asleep? Thirty years, forty? Too long, too many assignments ignored, too many reports overdue. _Someone is going to come for him._

Right. Reputation management. What can he do, quickly, to keep them off his back? And what can he find in recent events to take credit for?

Some of his assignments have arrived in writing; that will be helpful. Letters from Below tend to materialize in the hearth rather than coming in with the post, but happily, he's been asleep without a fire burning— there's a little stack of envelopes there, which he sorts through quickly and carries to his desk. At least he's well-practiced at writing up reports for things he hasn't done.

Usually it's because Aziraphale has done them instead.

_Wonder if that'll ever happen again_ , he thinks bitterly, and then decides it's better not to think about it.

By the next morning, he's written up a stack of extremely boring and over-detailed reports, backdated them appropriately, and, in what he feels is a particularly clever addition, forged stamps on several of them that imply they've already been through Hell's paperwork systems.

He adds a note to the top of the stack— _Sorry for the delay, people! Just had a batch of these returned and realized they'd been misrouted. Hope they meet with your satisfaction_ — and sets it in the hearth. A murmured incantation and a minor demonic miracle later, it's done, the earthly papers burned to ash and the reports winging their way to the filing department.

There. That's dealt with, and he's confident the reports are dense and dull enough that not even a vengeful Hastur would bother to read them thoroughly. Back to bed, and hopefully to sweeter dreams.

* * *

Crowley is outside, in the garden, mercilessly digging out a climbing rose. It's a pretty one, to be sure, but they can't have it in the garden any longer.

All the rosebushes seem to have turned against Aziraphale. He can't walk through the garden without being pricked and scratched by thorns, or tripping over trailing canes that stretch across the garden paths. Most recently he's come in with his waistcoat torn where the thorns got at it; last week it was a handful of cut flowers to put on the mantel that turned out to be teeming with hidden bees.

So the blasted rose has to go. Crowley digs the spade viciously into the soil, intent on tearing out every trace of it. But however far he digs, the rosebush's roots seem to go further, and there are buzzards circling overhead...

* * *

He's in the kitchen, alone. That's jarring, just for a moment— but no, Aziraphale is upstairs, isn't he? Still in bed.

Breakfast in bed, that's it. The sort of little treat that Crowley wants so badly to arrange. The sort he _can_ arrange, when they're together like this.

Maybe he'll make a plate of crepes— a little treat, and also a little bit of a joke. He cracks an egg on the countertop, splits the shell apart over the bowl.

Nothing happens. No egg drains into the bowl. When Crowley turns the egg over in his hand, bewildered, its shell isn't so much as scratched.

He cracks it again.

It mends itself again.

He tries a different egg from the basket. And a third, and a fourth. He smashes one entirely, shards of eggshell flying in every direction, his palm flat against the countertop and sticky with yolk.

The egg is sitting there, whole and unblemished, when he lifts his hand back up...

* * *

It's raining again. Crowley wants to get out of the house— a drive into the village, a stroll around their own garden, anything would do. But it's pouring rain, and it hasn't let up all month, and all he can do is pace around the sitting room like a caged animal, glaring out the windows at it.

"Dear heart," Aziraphale says from the couch. He's reading, and making little marks in a notebook as he goes— one of his old prophecy books, probably, and a list of possible interpretations. There's a plate of cheese-filled crepes on the table at his elbow, forgotten, going soggy.

"What?" Crowley snaps, and then winces. He doesn't want to argue, not again.

"Come and sit down, will you? You can't pace forever— you'll wear a hole in the carpeting."

Crowley, obedient, goes and sits down. But hellfire, he wants to get out of here, his feet practically burn with it...

* * *

Crowley wakes, and lies perfectly still in the dark for a while, thinking.

All right. Something strange is going on. The odd trouserless performance review notwithstanding, Crowley doesn't normally have unsettling dreams, and certainly not ones that repeat and recycle like this. There must be some reason for it, something he's missed.

He starts out with a pencil and notebook, listing out repeating details. There's been rain in nearly every dream. And a garden, usually— he's pretty sure that bit's just about him and Aziraphale, but he lists it just in case.

Aziraphale himself counts as a recurring element, probably. And books, although he can file that under 'Aziraphale'; it wouldn't be a dream about Aziraphale if there weren't some books in it. Eggs. Crepes, or possibly blintzes (he files that under 'Aziraphale' as well). Birds circling overhead or perched nearby, always with their wings spread— the silhouette is angel-like enough, that might mean something to do with Aziraphale's higher-ups watching. Or, he supposes, his own lower-downs.

_Or_ , just something about actual birds.

Crowley groans and tosses the pencil aside. He won't get anywhere like this. Dream analysis the human way— next he'll be convincing himself that dreaming of a camel means a coming windfall.

Start from the other direction, then. What has he missed in world events? What's going on out there that might cause this sort of agitation to a sleeping demon? What _year_ is it, even?

The easy way to find out would be to go and see Aziraphale. Crowley's lip twists at the thought— he's not turning up at the bookshop looking for help, not after the last time he asked the angel for a favor.

And anyway, if there really is something behind these dreams— something personal, beyond just the strife and chaos of the world— he doesn't fancy bringing it to Aziraphale's doorstep.

That's all right. He's clever enough, and he has his sources. He can work this out on his own.

A week later, he's built up a respectable dossier on current events, and a thick folder reviewing everything he's missed. Oh, yes— and he's bought a car.

And he's no closer at all to sorting out the source of the dreams.

There's certainly no shortage of candidates. There's a war brewing— no, he corrects himself, _another_ war, and by the looks of it, it might be the nastiest one yet. Some kind of financial collapse that he can't really follow the details of. Some sort of libertine revolution, which sounds promising; vicious backlash against it, which doesn't. None of it really seems to line up with the dreams, beyond provoking a general sense of dread— nothing obviously connected to birds, or rain, or any of the rest of it.

It's Aziraphale turning up in the dreams that really worries him. Maybe, _maybe_ it's just— well, he can't deny he's happy to dream about Aziraphale. About a life together. Maybe his subconscious is just overlaying these strange signs and omens over the peaceful dreams he'd be having otherwise.

Or maybe it's as he suspects: that the dreams are trying to tell him something about Aziraphale, or about him and Aziraphale together. That there's some creeping danger approaching.

"All right," he mutters aloud, glaring at his notes. "Never mind this. Sort yourselves out, work out what the heaven you're meant to be telling me, and just spit it out, will you? I'm going back to bed."

* * *

The roof is falling in. Aziraphale is still fluttering around the study, moving things aimlessly from place to place, putting a book into his carpetbag, taking it out and putting another in its place, shaking his head and putting it back in again— and the _roof is falling in_.

"Angel, _please_ ," Crowley says desperately, grabbing up an armload of books at random. "Look, I've got all of these, you've got the bag, just please _pick it up_ and let's _go_."

"Crowley, don't be silly," Aziraphale says, not looking up. Behind him, a massive chunk of plaster breaks loose, leaving a hole in the ceiling the shape of a bird with spread wings. He doesn't seem to notice. "I can't just leave all of my things."

"Yes, you can!" Crowley is just aware enough to remember that this is a dream, that none of this could seriously harm either of them even if it were real— but under that thin layer of rationality he's _terrified_ , his feet burning with the urge to bolt. "Come on, Aziraphale. It's not safe here. Please."

As if to emphasize his point, another chunk of plaster falls in. This one hits the mantelpiece, smashing a vase of roses to bits.

Aziraphale still hasn't looked up from the stack of books he's dithering over. "You'll keep me safe, my dear," he says, waving a hand. "Me and my books. You always do, don't you?"

"That's what I'm _trying_ to do," Crowley protests— and there's a massive thundering crash from somewhere above them, and he bolts forward in a panic, reaching desperately for Aziraphale's arm to drag him out—

The dream blurs and changes. Aziraphale isn't there. He's alone, somewhere dark and empty.

Behind him, someone says, "Thick-headed bastard, aren't you?"

He spins around, frantic, and demands, "Where's Aziraphale?"

"Just where you've been telling yourself he would be," the speaker says, with maddening calm. He's a man of middle years, apparently human, dressed in clerical robes. "You already know where to find him, and what sort of trouble he's in. You've given yourself quite good clues, too. Pity you don't listen to yourself."

"What are you talking about?" Crowley snarls. "Who are you?"

"Oh, come now, Antonius," the man says, laughing, and suddenly he does look familiar. It would have been a long, _long_ time ago, Crowley thinks, somewhere in the early Middle Ages— the rare bishop who was actually an all right sort of chap—

"You're a saint now," he says vaguely, and then, the pieces starting to click together, "He's in a church? _Your_ church?"

"I told you you already knew," the saint says, beaming, and Crowley wakes.

He sits still for a moment, trying to catch his breath, assembling the last few pieces. A medieval bishop he'd actually sort of liked— what in hell was the fellow's name? Something about eggs, mending a smashed basket of eggs— and rain—

A scrap of singsong nonsense floats up in his mind: _St Swithun's day if it should rain, for forty days it will remain—_

"Right," Crowley mutters aloud, flinging himself out of bed and miracling himself dressed. Aziraphale's in a church. A church named for St. Swithun, he's sure there's one of those in London— and he's in some sort of trouble, trouble that... possibly has to do with birds or roses or something, and it's up to Crowley to find him and get him out of it and _keep him safe—_

It's only the third time he's actually driven the Bentley, and he's never driven _anything_ this fast. If it weren't the dead of night during a blackout, the time he makes from his place to St Swithin, London Stone, might have gone down in the record books.

* * *

The drive back to the shop is quiet.

Crowley wishes it weren't. In the quiet, he has nothing to do but think about the scene in the church again, think about how close he'd cut it— _it wouldn't have mattered_ , he tells himself again and again, _discorporation is just an inconvenience, they couldn't have done any real damage_ , but he can't shake the image of those sneering human bastards holding Aziraphale at gunpoint.

When he does manage to drag his mind away from it, he thinks, instead, about the last time he saw Aziraphale. The dreadful argument. Aziraphale storming off, and... well. And, evidently, not so much as trying to reach him for the better part of a century.

He was his old self in the church, though. Things seemed... normal.

Maybe— he's almost afraid to think it— maybe he hasn't ruined it after all. Maybe they can get back to the way things were.

_Maybe we'll even get to the way I dreamed it was, someday._

He shakes his head, grimacing. That's ridiculous. Nothing but wishful thinking.

"Does it still hurt?" Aziraphale asks from the passenger seat, very quietly.

"What?"

"You— I thought you flinched. As if your feet were still—" He trails off, twisting his hands in his lap. "Crowley, you shouldn't have done it. You shouldn't have risked it."

Crowley grimaces again. "Don't," he says, and then, when it looks as if Aziraphale is going to argue, "No— _really_ , angel, don't. Don't say anything you wouldn't want overheard."

"You're right, of course," Aziraphale says, and turns his gaze back to his own folded hands. The last few blocks pass in silence.

When they pull up at the bookshop's doorstep, Aziraphale doesn't move. Crowley is just beginning to wonder whether he should reach across and open the door for him— has the angel ever actually _been_ in a car before?— when he seems to reach a decision and says suddenly, "Will you come in? For a nightcap?"

Crowley hesitates. A part of him leaps at the invitation, but— _Don't forget yourself. Don't do anything foolish. This isn't one of your dreams, you can't have him, not the way you want—_

There's a hand on his. Aziraphale's hand, warm and solid.

"I would like very much for you to come in," Aziraphale says quietly, and gives his hand a squeeze, and then lets him go and gets out of the car.

Maybe he _is_ dreaming.

_If I am_ , he thinks as he scrambles out of the car and after Aziraphale, _here's hoping I don't wake up anytime soon…_


End file.
